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The Great Piano [music] Scam!!!

amirm

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Remarkable story of deceit which got even the best classical music critics:


Anyone has more insight into this story? How did rearranging music in post production make it even better than it was? I can see that in electronic music and such but in classical piano?

Anyone own her work?
 

Cosmik

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As I recall, he was fiddling around with tempo changes that didn't affect the pitch, etc. Instead of "better", it may have made it slightly "different" for which a music critic who knows the work inside out might think it was "inspired". Do I recall correctly that even the person whose recording it was based on didn't recognise it as his own playing?

Maybe it shows that there's a bit of Emperor's New Clothes to classical music: people getting very excited by "brilliant interpretations" that are in reality just slightly arbitrary changes in rhythm and tempo. (Not to in any way denigrate the unbelievable skill that goes into playing all the right notes in the right order in the first place. Nor the composer's skill).
 
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amirm

amirm

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Do I recall correctly that even the person whose recording it was based on didn't recognise it as his own playing?
Yes. They mentioned one famous pianist that swore it was not his but mechanical analysis showed that it was.
 

RayDunzl

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RayDunzl

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On the other hand, recycling your own stuff is acceptable:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenochrony

In the words of Zappa himself:

A classic "Xenochrony" piece would be "Rubber Shirt", which is a song on the Sheik Yerbouti album. It takes a drum set part that was added to a song at one tempo. The drummer was instructed to play along with this one particular thing in a certain time signature, eleven-four, and that drum set part was extracted like a little piece of DNA from that master tape and put over here into this little cubicle. And then the bass part, which was designed to play along with another song at another speed, another rate in another time signature, four-four, that was removed from that master tape and put over here, and then the two were sandwiched together. And so the musical result is the result of two musicians, who were never in the same room at the same time, playing at two different rates in two different moods for two different purposes, when blended together, yielding a third result which is musical and synchronizes in a strange way. That's Xenochrony. And I've done that on a number of tracks.


Zappa dubbed the technique "xenochrony," from the Greek words xeno (strange or alien) and chrono (time). As he explained, "In this technique, various tracks from unrelated sources are randomly synchronized with each other to make a final composition with rhythmic relationships unachievable by other means." For example, in the case of the Zoot Allures track "Friendly Little Finger," the solo guitar and bass were recorded in a dressing room on a 2-track Nagra and then later combined with an unrelated drum track for a piece called "The Ocean Is The Ultimate Solution," with additional instrumentation scored to complement the newly produced time signatures. Xenochrony proved to be a powerful new compositional tool for Zappa, and he returned to it many times over later albums.


Maybe a little Xenochrony is evident in the video portion, added, later, by the posters, and not the composer...
 
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amirm

amirm

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Maybe it shows that there's a bit of Emperor's New Clothes to classical music: people getting very excited by "brilliant interpretations" that are in reality just slightly arbitrary changes in rhythm and tempo.
Indeed it looks like it happened. From the wiki page (thanks Ray):

"Those praising the recordings included Tom Deacon,[16]a former record producer for Philips, who produced that label's Great Pianists of the 20th Century series and was so fooled he praised and damned the same recording thinking that one was by Hatto and the other by Matsuzawa;[17]"

So he praised the modified version and disliked the original!
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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As I recall, he was fiddling around with tempo changes that didn't affect the pitch, etc. Instead of "better", it may have made it slightly "different" for which a music critic who knows the work inside out might think it was "inspired". Do I recall correctly that even the person whose recording it was based on didn't recognise it as his own playing?

Maybe it shows that there's a bit of Emperor's New Clothes to classical music: people getting very excited by "brilliant interpretations" that are in reality just slightly arbitrary changes in rhythm and tempo. (Not to in any way denigrate the unbelievable skill that goes into playing all the right notes in the right order in the first place. Nor the composer's skill).
Well, see, that is why vinyl on turntables is really better. The speed varies randomly in wow/flutter anyway, partly because the disc is never perfectly centered on the spindle. And, you can change the average speed a little faster or slower to your heart's content, each time creating a fresh, new, inspiring performance.

Hell, even better, set up your turntable to play backwards. Now, there is something.
 

Ceburaska

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I’ve got one of the old LPs from Fidelio, owned by Joyce Hatto’s husband, in the 1960s, conducted by William Havagesse. I’m still on the lookout for any Fidelio LP starring Herda Wobel.
 

Dismayed

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As I recall, he was fiddling around with tempo changes that didn't affect the pitch, etc. Instead of "better", it may have made it slightly "different" for which a music critic who knows the work inside out might think it was "inspired". Do I recall correctly that even the person whose recording it was based on didn't recognise it as his own playing?

Maybe it shows that there's a bit of Emperor's New Clothes to classical music: people getting very excited by "brilliant interpretations" that are in reality just slightly arbitrary changes in rhythm and tempo. (Not to in any way denigrate the unbelievable skill that goes into playing all the right notes in the right order in the first place. Nor the composer's skill).

Her husband is a highly competent critic - he knows music well. He clearly lacks the skill to actually play at a high level, but his interpretation was put forth through manipulating the skills of others. So they really were unique interpretations.

I think it is absurd to claim that new interpretations are merely arbitrary changes in rhythm and tempo. You could very well say the same thing about Marlon Brando's acting, which truly was extraordinary.
 
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